VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie

[peterbeischmidt]

Some of you may be familiar with the German publishing houses Langenscheidt, Buske, and Harrassowitz. Although their publications are for the most part in German, they are known internationally for their high-quality language manuals. For those who don't know them yet, I have included links to Alexander Arguelles' video reviews on Youtube at the bottom of this post.
While these publishers have received a fair deal of attention among international language learners, this thread is devoted to another publisher of outstanding language manuals, that has been totally forgotten. Sadly, it also now longer exists ...
The publisher I'm talking about is VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, which was the publisher for language materials, dictionaries and such in socialist East Germany. It came into existence, when various publishers with a similar profile were merged by the central government in 1956. The reason it no longer exists is that it did not survive the breakdown of East-Germany and the necessary transformation to a capitalist company.
Nevertheless, they have a left a legacy of many high-quality language manuals, most of which follow the classical structure of having a reading at the beginning of each chapter, then providing grammatical explanations, and finally giving plenty of translation exercises. Some of these even have accompanying audio recordings.
It should also be noted that some of them continue to be in print by Buske and Langenscheidt.

Some months ago I compiled a list of their language manuals. Since no such list seems to be available anywhere on the internet, it occurred to me to place it here for reference and for the benefit of people who find their way here through Bing. The bold (A) means that audio recordings exist. Also note that only their language manuals are included, while their systematic grammars, dictionaries and such have been omitted. Finally, this list is only a rough guide and is certainly ripe with errors.

• Taschenlehrbuch Ungarisch, 1986, Paul Karpati, Hans Skirecki (A)
• Taschenlehrbuch Russisch, Guenther Klaus (A)
• Taschenlehrbuch Polnisch, 1987, Szczeci´nska, Graçzyna (A)
• Taschenlehrbuch Portugiesisch, 1978, Zdenek Hampl
• Taschenlehrbuch Slowakisch, 1997, Ludmila Brinkel und Karl-Heinz Berger
• Lehrbuch der mongolischen Sprache, 1969, Hans-Peter Vietze
• Lehrbuch des modernen Arabisch, Dieter Blohm, Wolfgang Reuschel
• Lehrbuch der indonesischen Sprache, 1978, Erich-Dieter Krause
• Lehrbuch der spanischen Sprache, 1985, Georg Baumbach, Ulrich Stahr
• Lehrbuch der portugiesischen Sprache - Europäisches Portugiesisch, 1988, Rostok
• Lehrbuch der englischen Sprache, 1963
• Lehrbuch der persischen Sprache, 1976, Bozorg Alavi
• Modernes Italienisch - Praktisches Lehrbuch der italienischen Sprache, 1959, Vladimiro Macchi
• Lehrbuch Der Modernen Hebräischen Sprache, 1984, Simon Heinrich
• Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache, 1990, Nicole und Ulrich Krüger Krüger
• Taschenlehrbuch Esperanto, 1990, Till Dahlenburg und Peter Liebig
• Lehrbuch des Akkadischen, 1973, Kaspar K. Riemschneider
• Lehrbuch Russisch intensiv - Kurs für Fortgeschrittene, 1975, Siegfried Kohls, Diethelm Schulz
• Lehrbuch des Bambara, 1974, Siegmund Brauner
• Lehrbuch des Sanskrit. Grammatik, Lektionen, Glossar, 1973
• Lehrbuch des modernen Djawanisch, 1964, Hans Herrfurth
• Mandschu-Grammatik mit Lesestücken und 23 Texttafeln, 1961
• Lehrbuch der Yoruba-Sprache, 1968, Michael Ashiwaju
• Lehrbuch der Hausa-Sprache, 1965, Siegmund Brauner, Michael Ashiwaju
• Lehrbuch des Swahili, Siegmund Brauner, Joseph K. Bantu
• Grundkurs der modernen japanischen Sprache, 1988, Eiko Saito, Helga Silberstein (A)
  Someone who was obviously very impressed by this textbook re-created it in its entirety (including audio recordings) online here: https://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~ygu/j/ ... /Index.htm
• Lehrbuch der bulgarischen Sprache, 1987, Elga G. Karvanbasieva, Hilmar Walter
• Kurzer Lehrgang der Tschechischen Sprache, 1976
• Lehrbuch der amharischen Sprache, 1994, Renate Richter
• Lehrbuch der polnischen Sprache fuer Anfaenger, 1968, Waclaw Bisko, Stanislaw Karolak, Rozemaria Tertel, Danuta Wasilewska (A)
• Polnisch fuer Fortgeschrittene, 1974, Stanislaw Karolak, Danuta Wasilewska (A)
• Lehrbuch der polnischen Sprache fuer Fortgeschrittene
• Lehrbuch der polnischen Sprache, 1989, Mueller, Faulstich, Rudolph-Czerniawska
• El Espanol. Ein praktisches Lehrbuch der spanischen Sprache, 1964, Vladimiro Macchi
• Lehrbuch des Malinke, 1992, Marianne Friedländer
• Lehrbuch des Susu, 1974, Marianne Friedländer
• Grundkurs Vietnamesisch, 1990, Hoang Thi Chau (A) (comes with three cassette tapes)
• Lehrgang der klassischen chinesischen Schriftsprache, 1990, Erich Haenisch
• Aufbaukurs Vietnamesisch, 1990, Winfried Boscher und Nguyen- Van-Menh
• Neugriechisches Lehrbuch, 1981, Marina L. Rytova
• Niederländisches Lehrbuch und Vokabelverzeichnis, 1974, Hans Herrfurth
• Lehrbuch des Khmer, 1985, Ruth Sacher, Nguon Phan
• Lehrbuch des Sanskrit, 1989, Wolfgang Morgenroth
• Lehrbuch des modernen Burmesisch (Umgangssprache), 1983, Eberhardt Richter
• Burmesisches Übungsbuch, 1988, Esche, Annemarie; Richter, Eberhardt (A)
• Deutsch-Burmesisches Gesprächsbuch, 1969, Richter, Eberhardt; Maung Than Zaw
• Lehrbuch des Isländischen, 1994, Rita Duppler, Astrid van Nahl
• Russische Sprache der Gegenwart, Kurt Gabka
• Arabische Grammatik, 1965, Carl Brockelmann

Series: Wir lernen ... sprechen

• Wir lernen Rumänisch sprechen : ein Taschenlehrbuch Erwin Silzer. - 2., überarb. Aufl.. - Verlag Enzyklopädie 1971
• Wir lernen Tschechisch sprechen : ein Taschenlehrbuch Rudolf Fischer. - 5., unveränderte Auflage. - Verlag Enzyklopädie 1968
• Wir lernen Finnisch sprechen : ein Taschenlehrbuch Richard Semrau. - 1. Aufl.. - Verlag Enzyklopädie 1964
• Wir lernen Englisch sprechen : ein Taschenlehrbuch Hans Löffler und Leonard Goldman. - Verlag Enzyklopädie 1967
• Wir lernen Esperanto sprechen : ein Taschenlehrbuch Ludwig Schödl - Verlag - Enzyklopädie 196
• Wir lernen Polnisch sprechen Sprachen für Jedermann, 1966, Wilhelm Reinholz
• Wir lernen Russisch sprechen, 1960, Hoffmann Kusnezowa
• Wir lernen Serbokroatisch sprechen, 1968, Konrad Kappes

Arguelles' video reviews mentioned in the first paragraph:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NVcCERZ9NQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCCgQgV2qeo

A chapter of a book on Google Books that provided some enlightening information on the history of this publishing house:
https://books.google.de/books?id=Xd9nAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA89&ots=ePknwjl7ET&dq=veb%20verlag%20enzyklopaedie&pg=PA89#v=onepage&q=veb%20verlag%20enzyklopaedie&f=false

I'd be happy to have a conversation with you about the publisher and/or their works, otherwise the list can just as well silently sit here to serve as a reference. Thanks for reading!

[peterbeischmidt]

Since I created this thread about one and a half months ago, I've been trying to find the recordings for those works in the list which I qualified with the (A). Today, I've received the four vinyl records four "Polnisch fuer Fortgeschrittene", and I'm currently making a digital copy. Every once in a while I listen in, while my computer is recording, and I'm just amazed by the quality of the recordings and the liveliness of the voices. These are language learning recordings at their best, and I think it's been more than worth it, even though I don't study Polish myself. I will definitely try to locate the remaining ones as well.

Since the original publisher ceased to exist, I'm not sure what the copright situation is. I'll try to find out who the copyright holder is, if there is one, and ask them for permission to make these recordings available online. Meanwhile, should anyone be interested, they can send me a private message.

[peterbeischmidt]

For the millions who are relying daily on the validity and comprehensiveness of the information given in this thread, I would like to announce the following correction: The Grundkurs Vietnamesisch by Hoang Thi Chau actually does come with recordings. I know because I'm moving soon and in the process of deciding what to keep and what to throw away I came across the three tapes in a box. I couldn't be happier because I'm actually learning Vietnamese and will probably use them myself.

[peterbeischmidt]

Added two new entries:

• Deutsch-Burmesisches Gesprächsbuch
• Burmesisches Übungsbuch